Love at Third Sight!
by ShirouEmiya
Summary: Young Syaoran Li takes a hazardous, not to mention long, walking journey to a city 11 miles away! What he doesn't expect is that he'd get really lost, then see a mysterious city pop out of nowhere! It's quite a mystery fic...But it's got romance!


**A/N:** Felicitations, fellow readers/authors! It's me, Shirou Emiya! I know it's not my real name, so just be contented with it! This is my very first fanfic, so don't overreact if the story is corny, or is too detailed, or is too full of complicated words, or is not accurate to the original anime, alright? It would be nice to hear what you think about my fanfic, so reviews are very, very welcome! Just don't put any flames…if you hate my story and want to destroy it, better just pretend you never read it. And, oh yes, you might be wondering why my first fanfic is in Cardcaptor Sakura and not in Fate/Stay Night (my penname _is _from Fate), so I'll tell you the reason, even if you're not interested (hehehehe). I don't know the full plot of Fate, so making an incomplete fanfic would just not be right for me. I don't even know all the characters! Just what the hell is Fate/Heaven's Feel, anyway…? Uh, never mind. Just don't forget the reviews!

Legend:

**1.** This is an example of plain text. This is just narration, storytelling, or, in some cases, thoughts of the current character.

**2.** "When you see text in double quotation marks, it means it's being said by a character in the story." how the character says it is usually, but not always, appended on the start, in the middle, or at the end of the double quoted text. But you already know that if you frequently read book novels.

**3.**_ "This is special. When the text is in double quotes, and is italicized, it means it is being thought out by the said character." _In this fic, I treat thoughts like spoken words, except that they're _italicized, _just to avoid confusion. But I still use Legend #1 more often than you might think…_ "Hahahahaha!"_

**4. **_When text is italicized, but not in quotation marks, it is just a means of emphasis. _Just like in this sentence: It was _you _who did it! Imagine the character saying the word _you _in that sentence with a higher and longer accent, and you got it!

**5. **_**When the text is in bold, and is italicized, it means it states a period of time, like yesterday, or last year. **_I use this in place of 'flashback words'. I find flashbacks quite annoying for fics, or just about any written novel, because it sort of mixes up the story (for me), but you can't avoid these when making manga or anime-based fics. So when you see words like _**last morning…**_, it means the text following it happened in that aforementioned period of time.

**6. **'Finally, if text is in single quotation marks and not italicized, then it simply means that the words in the quotes are either made-up, unsure, or invented to induce sarcasm, annoyance, obstinacy, or anger.'

You with me so far? Yeah, I know it's long for just a stinking legend (it takes up my time too, you know!). Next (what?!) are non-verbal legends:

**1. **------------

These symbols mean the end of a 'flashback'. They're twelve dashes, but you don't need to count them!

**2. &&&&&**

These 'ampersands' (as named by MS Word) symbolize that the scene has just ended and a new one would start after it. They're pretty easy to count. Five, perhaps?

**3. &&&&&&&&&&**

When you see ten, however, it means the end of a chapter! I'll say if it's the end, too, to avoid confusion.

**A/N: **There! That's all of the legend! Don't worry; I won't be retyping the legend in the upcoming chapters! I'll just remind you to go to this chapter if you get confused with the symbology, alright? My author's notes would also be shorter next time. And, if you find my words quite complicated, then it wouldn't hurt to have a dictionary at hand. Now, let's begin! (Finally!)

* * *

**Mysteries**

By: Shirou Emiya

**Chapter 1 **

Syaoran and the Mysterious City

…

It was already late in the evening. The moon hailed a full face, and the stars sprinkled around it were twinkling down onto the vast forest. The man trudging its rugged terrain is already extremely exhausted, carrying a large camping backpack. He started out on his journey just this morning; now deep in the hours of night, he has traveled much too far to go back to his hometown.

'_I really should've just taken the monorail…' _he regrettably thought, _'I never expected the so-called nearby town to take a day's walk through this enormous and annoying forest!'_

Hour after hour he walked impatiently, waiting for the seemingly infinite foliage in front of him to end. Finally, it did, and he saw at the edge of the forest a vast shoreline, with the ocean stretching to the twilight horizon. He walked to the sandy shore and crouched, looking at his reflection upon the surprisingly still water.

"_What a stupid thing to do…" _he thought, ruffling his tangled amber hair. He impulsively recalled what happened before he left.

_**Last morning…**_

"Syaoran, wait!" a very distressed mother pleaded to her son, "I know this seems sudden, but your father said he'd be back by next week!"

Syaoran Li ignored his mother's words and hurried on fixing his equipment, "I don't care when he'll be back!" he retorted, "He also said he'd call us, or at least mail to us once he gets to Tsujiwara, but we haven't heard from him ever since he set out! It's been two weeks since he left; do you know how long that is?!"

Li's mother fell silent. Syaoran was right; his father originally set out to the nearby town to see how his friend was doing, and yet they have not heard of him after fourteen days.

"Syaoran, darling," his mother once again pleaded, "You don't need to do this for your father. We could just call the police and—"

"I do not, will not, and will never trust my father to the police!" Syaoran got angrier, increasing his stubbornness, "Their job is to protect people, not to meddle on family affairs!"

"It's decided, then!" he irritatingly concluded, taking his oversized backpack with him to the door of his house, "I will go through the forest myself and find out if something happened to him while he was going there."

"Syaoran, that's far too dangerous!" Li's mother was at the verge of crying, "I know you're already 16, but you're much too young—not to mention inexperienced—to make it through the forest!"

"I don't care about myself!" he rashly quipped, making his mother gasp and helplessly weep, "I care about my dad! And besides, he took the forest route as well! What if something happened to him while he was traveling?! Then I could find him if ever! Goodbye!"

With that, he darted towards the door, leaving his poor mother weeping and faintly calling out for him.

**------------**

'_What have I done…' _now he deeply regretted what he just did to his poor old mother, not to mention to himself. He dug his face with his hands and coldly laughed at his own stupid obstinacy. "Well, what's done is done!" Syaoran loudly said, trying to encourage himself, "Now where exactly am I?" He took out his compass and map from his bag, and speedily calculated in his mind how far he was from his destination, Tsujiwara.

"_I'm now 11 miles north-west from Shimokusu, so that means I'm just a few steps away from Tsujiwara! I'm close!" _he happily said to himself. _"I just need to head north-west…"_

His thought faltered when he saw what was at the direction he just said.

Pure saltwater. It turns out the direction he was heading was slightly off-north…

He was heading south-east.

"Darn it!" he shouted to the sky, kicking sand to the air. He needed to rest; it was twelve in the morning already, and he was _dead tired_. He wished he could just lie down on the sand and crash for the night, but if he did that then he'd most probably be in the hospital tomorrow with a fatal illness…if there even _was_ a hospital at least one-hundred meters from here_, or people to notice him_, in the very least. He hated his loss of skill in directions. Do you even _need _skill in compass reading? He only needed one look to see if the darned needle pointed north or south; does that mean he's blind?

Seeing that cursing and insulting himself won't do any good, Syaoran just brought out his presence of mind and looked intently at his map. He corrected his location, and saw that he was nowhere near any town or city in his map. The nearest town was over three miles away!

This infuriated him further. He threw his map to the air. But as he was watching the map flutter back to the ground, he saw something interesting…

"_Buildings?!" _

He was astonished to see several tall skyscrapers stand out from the lush trees to his right. _"Were those there before?" _he thought hard whether his self-loathing made him ignore the seemingly obvious concrete structures before. His head throbbed.

"_What I need is rest, not more thinking!" _with that thought he shoved his doubts about the mysterious city and trudged straight to its direction, looking forward to the stately hotels he would be staying in. He did bring _one-hundred thousand_ yen! And that's only pocket change for the Li clan. He really was very tired, and he craved sleep; he preferred to sleep than to eat right now, and he doesn't like the idea of snoozing amongst wild beasts and insects. _"That would be disgusting."_

Just after fifteen minutes of brisk walking he started hearing the hums and sounds of passing cars. He still couldn't see the road nor the cars through the thick branches and bushes, but he nonetheless ran as fast as he could, hoping to reach the edge of this 'accursed forest'.

He wasn't that happy, however, when he found out that the forest was actually _fifteen meters _above the road…and he found that out with a sudden fall. He tumbled painfully across the jagged rocky cliff wall, hitting sharp rocks and blunt boulders, getting severely bruised and injured. With a heavy blow on his head Syaoran fell unconscious before reaching the base of the cliff, rolling to the middle of the road. There he lied prone, helpless, badly injured and insensible while his oversized and miraculously unhurt backpack covered his whole body like a dead weight. From a distance Syaoran looked like a medium-sized boulder covered with moss in the middle of the road.

**&&&&&**

"Mister, look out!"

The auburn-haired girl noticed the obstruction as she gazed sleepily to the dimly lit road; she had attended a party hosted by her best friend, and since it lasted until one in the morning, her friend and host offered her a free cab ride. The taxi driver, realizing that he was about to smash on what looks like a boulder situated at the center of the road, hastily stepped on the brakes. The car skidded to a halt just inches from the strange object.

"What could this be?" the startled driver said, still behind the wheel and blankly staring at the headlight-illuminated obstacle.

"I don't know either." the passenger replied, still mindlessly gazing onto the 'rock'. But then she noticed brownish-yellow locks of what looks like…

"Hair!" she shouted.

"Pardon me?" the driver bewilderingly asked.

Without replying the girl quickly got out of the taxi and went near Syaoran. Her fears were realized; he was covered with cuts and bruises, and, due to her experience in first-aid, she noticed he suffered from hemorrhage and several broken bones. He was still unconscious.

"Mister!" the girl rushed back to the passenger seat, "Please help me carry this man to the car!"

She and the still shocked driver carefully brought the injured man to the back seat.

"Please hurry to my house!" the girl hurriedly said, putting on her seatbelts.

"But wouldn't it be better to take him to the hospital?" the driver worriedly asked, snapping out of his shock.

"He needs to go to my house first!" the girl reiterated, "Please!"

Reluctantly the taxi driver restarted the engine and sped to her home.

**&&&&& **

It was morning.

Syaoran awoke due to the rays of light hitting his closed eyes. He opened them lazily, and saw a pink ceiling.

"_How cute…" _he blankly and ridiculously thought. _"I never thought my room would look better in pink…" _he let out a slight chuckle.

Suddenly he felt a pang on his chest. He was about to clutch it when he noticed his left arm was in a cast. The pain slowly spread throughout his whole torso. Unable to bear the intense throbs, he sat up from the bed and whined, tilting his head downward. He subconsciously stared at the lilac bed sheets, then…

"_Bed sheets? Bed?" _amidst the pain he realized that he was _not _in his room, and he was not in the forest either. _"What happened last night?" _he tried to recall the events that happened. _"All I could remember was that I was running in the forest, and then…"_

He felt the back of his head. There were bandages. Further down he eyed his legs. He saw the right one covered fully with more bandages, and his left one with a splint and cast. He lightly fingered his torso with his still-moveable right hand, and found out that he was topless. Almost his entire chest was again enveloped in dressing. He stared at his hand. Syaoran was still shocked after all that's happened, and he seem to be unable to absorb everything.

"Oh, you're awake."

Syaoran got alarmed at that statement and immediately whirled to the direction of the voice. The sharp pains recurred when he did this, and at once writhed in pain. But he still kept his gaze fixed on the girl. And he blushed…very much.

"You shouldn't make sudden movements now." The girl was clad in nothing but underwear. He couldn't help but stare at her, moving his head up and down. She had wonderful emerald eyes that perfectly matched her silky auburn hair, and her flawless milky white skin shone brightly on the morning sun. She was very curvaceous for her age, and Syaoran noticed it as well. Realizing what he was doing was perversely stupid, he jolted.

"What do you think you're doing, talking to a guy in underwear!" Syaoran bellowed, instantly turning his head away from her. Syaoran was madly red.

The girl seemed to care much less about that issue, but was still partly affected, for she turned slightly pink and grabbed a bathrobe from the nearby closet right away. "You can look now." she uttered.

Syaoran cautiously returned his head to its previous position, then sighed, relieved that the girl had put on something _other _than skimpy underwear. He then rudely asked, "Who the hell are you, anyway!?"

"I should be asking you that." She calmly smiled, taking a towel from the closet again. "You should be gentle to ladies, don't you think so?"

"I-I…" he stuttered, scratching the remaining unbandaged parts of his hair sheepishly, "I'm sorry, miss. I was…really shocked at…your appearance just then…"

"Now, no need to be _extremely _polite there." She laughed. She was drying her rich hair.

"S-So…My name Syaoran Li." Syaoran shyly said, as if trying to start a _decent _conversation with a stranger.

"Well, mine's Sakura. Sakura Kinomoto. Nice to meet you Syaoran Li!" Sakura stooped near Syaoran and held her hand out, expecting him to shake hands. Syaoran, with his mind still registering what he just saw a few moments ago, hastily grabbed hers. He felt the utter warmth and suppleness of Sakura's hand, and unintentionally held onto her hand longer than what a normal handshake would allow.

"Mr. Li?" Sakura reddened, noticing his gaze on her hand and how long their handshake is going.

"Uh, oh, sorry." said Syaoran, quickly removing his right hand and again blushing. Sakura stood up and resumed drying her hair in front of the mirror.

"Um, were you the one who bandaged me?" Syaoran suddenly queried, remembering what happened to him just now.

She stopped drying her lush brown hair and thought hard. _"No, I can't tell him just yet…." _she said to herself. "Nope, not me. I took you to the hospital when I saw you in the middle of the road at past midnight. Now aren't you lucky!" She grinned at him, and resumed her drying.

"Thanks for that." He replied timidly, scratching his cheek.

"Oh, just what someone concerned would do!" she happily spoke, then whispered, "Just someone concerned…"

"Oh, Sakura," he started, remembering the confusion he had last night with his map, "What's the name of this city?"

"The name of our city? That's a nice way to start a conversation." Sakura said, now brushing her now dry hair in front of a full-body mirror, "It's Tomoeda. Why?"

"Nothing." He mumbled. _"Tomoeda?" _he thought hard, _"I've never heard of a Tomoeda City in the whole of Mie!" _Syaoran knew Mie prefecture form top to bottom, and knew almost all city names in it. The only thing he wasn't good at, however, is _applying _his knowledge in cartography. But there was no 'Tomoeda' in his map, and that was the latest map he had!

**&&&&&&&&&& **

**A/N: **And that's the first chapter! It's quite long for a first chapter, don't you think so? And, yeah, I know it looks like Sakura and Syaoran's personality got interchanged, but that's the good thing about fanfics! There's no stopping you from doing anything you want! Oh, well. Just don't forget the reviews! I'm looking forward to it; if I get many negative ones, I'll straightaway discontinue this fic. But if most of you like it, then I'll continue! Yay! And oh, just a side request...if you see any typos, either in spelling, in grammar, whatever, please tell me. Thanks in advance!

One last note: School year in our country (which country, I won't tell!) is about to start, so I'll most likely be submitting the next chapters on a _monthly _basis! Ehehe…I know it's long, but please bear with me! Thanks for the time!

Shirou Emiya, over and out!


End file.
